Keith Olbermann loves a good conspiracy theory: We watch, because we’re paid to

On the same night that Larry King signed off after 25 years on CNN, Olbermann delivered a passive-aggressive, self-aggrandizing farewell to King, “a friend and supporter.” It reminded me of when the newsbroke back in July that King would be stepping down. Here’s’ what Olbermann said at the time: “Larry King announcing tonight he will leave his nightly show this fall. Larry King is a lovely and generous man, who repeatedly tried to convince his bosses to hire me to precede him at CNN, as long ago as the spring of 2001. I will always be in his debt. Larry King, great broadcaster, hello.“ Ha! The man does have a knack for bringing every story back to himself. (In case you missed it, here’showheused Elizabeth Edwards’ death to talk about his old show on ESPN.)

Anyway, he endedhis “tribute” tonight by slamming CNN and King for low ratings. Now that King is leaving, he said, CNN will realize “it wasn’t the host that was the problem of a feature interview show at 9 o’clock. It was the idea of a feature interview at 9 o’clock.” Classy!

The Worst Persons segment featured Lou Dobbs, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly. Olbermann read each offending quote in different, bizarre voices, presumably meant to be impressions. Whatever you’re imagining right now, make it weirder. Then the very next segment was an interview with Kevin Spacey about his new film in which he portrays Jack Abramoff, who Olbermann promptly mocked for having a habit of doing impressions. Then he told a story about how Walter Matthau once did a bad impression of Vin Scully for him. At this point I just have to throw my hands up.

I’ll end this column by saying that Keith Olbermann is almost certainly worse at doing impressions that Walter Matthau was. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go see if any flowers have been delivered, because that, ladies and gentlemen, is the nicest thing anyone’s said about Keith Olbermann all week.